SS Gestapo Chief Henrich Himmler's agents sped through the streets of Vienna on an early morning, March 11, 1938, to capture and eliminate Nazi Germany's enemies. One of his prime targets lived in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood at 28 Weihoffen St. Apartment 7. Ludwig Von Mises, a 58-year-old political philosopher, was Jewish and defenseless. Hitler deemed this man an enemy of the state and one of the top targets to be seized during the Nazi takeover of Austria. Fleeing from the city the day before, Professor Mises narrowly escaped to Switzerland.

Despite attempts on his life, Mises born in 1881, spent the 92 years of his life fighting totalitarianism that fed the actions of the Nazis, Marxist Socialists and other fringe groups. He believed that any kind of authoritarian government infringed on people's rights to worship, free speech, the right to travel and own businesses, all of which were banned by the National Socialist and Bolsheviks.

With cities like Detroit ($18.5 billion in debt), Philadelphia ($8 billion in debt), and Sacramento ($1.9 billion in debt) why are Mises disciple's voices silenced at major economic councils in Washington and throughout the country? Robert Reich, former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor, singles out the huge economic and political discrepancies between the Tea Party and the Occupier movements sparked by the Wall St. government bailouts. In a recent series of articles in the Huffington Post, Reich cites the high correlation "between inequality and political divisiveness." He correctly points out that America was never so divided regarding income, wealth and power since the 1920s. What Reich fails to address are the conditions that fed the growth of extremist movements, such as the Nazis and Communists, which later imploded as a result of the economic policies of debt and printing money.

Mises, the modern day creator of the Classical Liberal movement (today also called libertarianism) destroyed the intellectual arguments of socialism by proving that it was impossible to allocate scarce resources effectively without private property and free-market prices. He showed that the more the state limited economic incentives to individuals, the greater the harm to low-income people and the general population. Centralized planning, something that was characteristic of all three types of socialism: the Nazis, the Fascists and the Communists, led to the ruin of an economy, and resulted in more and more tyranny and the rise of the totalitarian state. What economists failed to understand was that massive government spending and a authoritative centralized government would bring economic ruin to Germany, Russia, and many other countries.

Continued in TFA_________________Chemtrails don't actually exist.
The optical illusion of seeing white streaks crisscrossing a blue background in the presence of sunlight is a common hallucination that comes from drinking fluoridated water.

SS Gestapo Chief Henrich Himmler's agents sped through the streets of Vienna on an early morning, March 11, 1938, to capture and eliminate Nazi Germany's enemies. One of his prime targets lived in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood at 28 Weihoffen St. Apartment 7. Ludwig Von Mises, a 58-year-old political philosopher, was Jewish and defenseless. Hitler deemed this man an enemy of the state and one of the top targets to be seized during the Nazi takeover of Austria. Fleeing from the city the day before, Professor Mises narrowly escaped to Switzerland.

Despite attempts on his life, Mises born in 1881, spent the 92 years of his life fighting totalitarianism that fed the actions of the Nazis, Marxist Socialists and other fringe groups. He believed that any kind of authoritarian government infringed on people's rights to worship, free speech, the right to travel and own businesses, all of which were banned by the National Socialist and Bolsheviks.

With cities like Detroit ($18.5 billion in debt), Philadelphia ($8 billion in debt), and Sacramento ($1.9 billion in debt) why are Mises disciple's voices silenced at major economic councils in Washington and throughout the country? Robert Reich, former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor, singles out the huge economic and political discrepancies between the Tea Party and the Occupier movements sparked by the Wall St. government bailouts. In a recent series of articles in the Huffington Post, Reich cites the high correlation "between inequality and political divisiveness." He correctly points out that America was never so divided regarding income, wealth and power since the 1920s. What Reich fails to address are the conditions that fed the growth of extremist movements, such as the Nazis and Communists, which later imploded as a result of the economic policies of debt and printing money.

Mises, the modern day creator of the Classical Liberal movement (today also called libertarianism) destroyed the intellectual arguments of socialism by proving that it was impossible to allocate scarce resources effectively without private property and free-market prices. He showed that the more the state limited economic incentives to individuals, the greater the harm to low-income people and the general population. Centralized planning, something that was characteristic of all three types of socialism: the Nazis, the Fascists and the Communists, led to the ruin of an economy, and resulted in more and more tyranny and the rise of the totalitarian state. What economists failed to understand was that massive government spending and a authoritative centralized government would bring economic ruin to Germany, Russia, and many other countries.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful “sovereign,” on account of the “protection” he affords you. He does not keep “protecting” you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave. ~ Lysander Spooner_________________Chemtrails don't actually exist.
The optical illusion of seeing white streaks crisscrossing a blue background in the presence of sunlight is a common hallucination that comes from drinking fluoridated water.

why are Mises disciple's voices silenced at major economic councils in Washington and throughout the country?

Quote:

What Reich fails to address are the conditions that fed the growth of extremist movements, such as the Nazis and Communists, which later imploded as a result of the economic policies of debt and printing money. [...]

Oh, it was a rhetorical question._________________It is what it is out there. So whatever it is, it is.

Liberals are more like Antoinette Tuff: people with greater emotional intelligence who comprehend concepts of society & community. They are desperately trying to talk down emotionally crippled, psycopathic killers intent on terrorising the population they are supposed to represent.

The only "liberals" left today are the very people you castigate. The left has become social authoritarians, hell-bent on dehumanizing collectivism at any and all costs.

The radical left has lost the lessons of Alinsky, become frustrated by Obama's bullshit, non-change-delivering con job, and are impatiently wandered into the failed domain of Marx; the populist demagoguery they have resorted to, the same crap that comes out of your parrot-head, has echo-chambered itself out of control and instead of producing gradual change, is going to result in mother-fucking BEAT DOWN by the right -- a conflict the left will lose badly and which could very well produce a full-blown fascist state.

I actually heard Nancy Pelosi yesterday on the steps of the Capitol blathering to a crowd of African Americans celebrating a 50 year civil rights movement anniversary, about "the evil of 'Gradualism'". That's classic Marxist revolutionary agitprop right there. Fail. Look around, asshats -- you see any Marxist success stories anywhere? Fail.

Fail, so-called "progressives". You have become that which you set out to protect humanity from -- you have become Big Brother authoritarians. You have become "The Man". You have become the Jack-booted assholes who kick in doors in the night. Yet you have the gall to blather about "humanity" and "emotional intelligence". Spare me! _________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

why are Mises disciple's voices silenced at major economic councils in Washington and throughout the country?

Because they're fuckwits with no idea how to govern a country?

Says the guy sitting in in the rubble of an empire built by entrepreneurs and self-cannibalized by the left.

Scandinavia will join the list of the self-cannibalized, followed by the rest of Europe and the US. Mathematically it's just not feasible for this to end any other way besides inflation and capital consumption. Buying goodies today by selling the unborn into debt slavery only works for a generation or two.

And it's political suicide to even attempt to address the issue. The cuts that led to the sequester or whatever were just a small percentage on the debt increase right? And you saw how hard that was fought against by the left. Thanks to folks like mcgruff the society we pass on to the next generation will be more violent and poorer than it was previously._________________

Quote:

It is with people as with trees. The more one seeks to rise into height and light, the more vigorously do ones roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep — into evil.

Fail, so-called "progressives". You have become that which you set out to protect humanity from -- you have become Big Brother authoritarians. You have become "The Man". You have become the Jack-booted assholes who kick in doors in the night. Yet you have the gall to blather about "humanity" and "emotional intelligence". Spare me!

Sounds like something my late grandfather used to say about his former comrades from WW2, after he got disillusioned with the communist party and witnessing the cowards who used to hide in bushes during firefights become party leaders in peace time. _________________“If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him”

Libertarian free-marketeers do have some interesting ideas but it's a bit like watching Norm from accounts who has just returned from Vegas with a 10-gallon hat. The hat wears him, not him the hat.

The problem is they don't have a clue how to put their ideas into context and the most striking omission - a real schoolboy howler of an error - is the lack of understanding of community. Humans are social animals and any philosophy which crassly attempts to reduce all social interactions to simple self-interest is doomed to fail.

Maybe there's a planet Libertar out there somewhere with an unremittingly self-centred species of beings, the Libertardians, for whom libertarian philosophy is a perfect fit. For human beings, not so much.

The problem is they don't have a clue how to put their ideas into context and the most striking omission - a real schoolboy howler of an error - is the lack of understanding of community. Humans are social animals and any philosophy which crassly attempts to reduce all social interactions to simple self-interest is doomed to fail.

Maybe there's a planet Libertar out there somewhere with an unremittingly self-centred species of beings, the Libertardians, for whom libertarian philosophy is a perfect fit. For human beings, not so much.

What is the name of this cognitive bias where watching someone else doing something wrong makes you think you could be doing it right, yet you are not doing anything?_________________“If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him”

Libertarian free-marketeers do have some interesting ideas but it's a bit like watching Norm from accounts who has just returned from Vegas with a 10-gallon hat. The hat wears him, not him the hat.

The problem is they don't have a clue how to put their ideas into context and the most striking omission - a real schoolboy howler of an error - is the lack of understanding of community. Humans are social animals and any philosophy which crassly attempts to reduce all social interactions to simple self-interest is doomed to fail.

Maybe there's a planet Libertar out there somewhere with an unremittingly self-centred species of beings, the Libertardians, for whom libertarian philosophy is a perfect fit. For human beings, not so much.

It is a question of scale. One does not expect the lens of relativity to explain the quantum world.
There is libertarian altruism, it just isn't state funded.
Attributing the "self-centered" quality to such a swath of humanity is rather bigoted and stereotypical, wouldn't you say?

Libertarian free-marketeers do have some interesting ideas but it's a bit like watching Norm from accounts who has just returned from Vegas with a 10-gallon hat. The hat wears him, not him the hat.

The problem is they don't have a clue how to put their ideas into context and the most striking omission - a real schoolboy howler of an error - is the lack of understanding of community. Humans are social animals and any philosophy which crassly attempts to reduce all social interactions to simple self-interest is doomed to fail.

Maybe there's a planet Libertar out there somewhere with an unremittingly self-centred species of beings, the Libertardians, for whom libertarian philosophy is a perfect fit. For human beings, not so much.

I think you're wrong about that. You're only aware of what you're exposed to, and something tells me you're not a CSPAN watcher and don't attend libertarian-oriented discussion in the UK. I would posit that you don't actually know very much about what libertarian-minded people are up to and what effects they are generating.

I can't speak for Europe, which has long since abandoned classical liberalism for the dole, but Libertarians are having a dramatic effect on the thinking of people all across America. Ten years ago, most Americans hadn't even heard the term "libertarian", almost nobody was talking about things like "limited government", and the only time you heard anybody talk about "individual rights" was in the context of minority movements. Now these issues are center stage.

The Republican Party in particular has adopted many of their themes (which represents a stark change from the degree to which social conservatism dominated their platform just a few years ago), and they've returned to a more honest focus on limited government and individual rights, along with fiscal responsibility, low taxes, and free markets (things the "neocons" had been paying lip service to while actually focusing on expanding American hegemony). That is merely a trend, not a revolution, but I see ongoing progress.

Meanwhile, at the moment, you don't hear Democrats publicly talking about many of these ideals because they're all about rationalizing their vote and maintaining control. Some are waking up and talking about individual rights because of things Obama has done. But, when they're feeling disenfranchised again, I predict you'll see a reawakening of liberalism (in the classical sense) within their party too. They're never going to be focused on fiscal conservatism, but they will halt their blind stampede toward social authoritarianism, and that is inextricably linked with limited government._________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

Libertarian free-marketeers do have some interesting ideas but it's a bit like watching Norm from accounts who has just returned from Vegas with a 10-gallon hat. The hat wears him, not him the hat.

The problem is they don't have a clue how to put their ideas into context and the most striking omission - a real schoolboy howler of an error - is the lack of understanding of community. Humans are social animals and any philosophy which crassly attempts to reduce all social interactions to simple self-interest is doomed to fail.

Maybe there's a planet Libertar out there somewhere with an unremittingly self-centred species of beings, the Libertardians, for whom libertarian philosophy is a perfect fit. For human beings, not so much.

It is a question of scale. One does not expect the lens of relativity to explain the quantum world.
There is libertarian altruism, it just isn't state funded.
Attributing the "self-centered" quality to such a swath of humanity is rather bigoted and stereotypical, wouldn't you say?

No, he wouldn't say._________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

Libertarian free-marketeers do have some interesting ideas but it's a bit like watching Norm from accounts who has just returned from Vegas with a 10-gallon hat. The hat wears him, not him the hat.

The problem is they don't have a clue how to put their ideas into context and the most striking omission - a real schoolboy howler of an error - is the lack of understanding of community. Humans are social animals and any philosophy which crassly attempts to reduce all social interactions to simple self-interest is doomed to fail.

Maybe there's a planet Libertar out there somewhere with an unremittingly self-centred species of beings, the Libertardians, for whom libertarian philosophy is a perfect fit. For human beings, not so much.

Your idea of community is herding people around with guns to their necks. Libertarians believe in actual community: voluntary community._________________Your argument is invalid.

You can't have a community based solely on self-interest. A community is based on fairness, equality and trust. A social animal like homo sapiens could never have evolved without them - it may even be that a unique talent for co-operation is specifically what gave us the edge over competitors like neanderthals. It's not a political or philosophical choice. It's hard-wired into us.

This TED talk by Richard Wilkinson provides a powerful argument for the importance of fairness in societies. On virtually every measure you can think of, societies with greater inequality perform worse than those which are more equal. Even the rich who took all the goodies often do less well than they would in a more equal society.

It's pretty clear that any political philosophy which does not guarantee equality (not absolute equality but rather a limit on excess) is a failed philosophy. So the question is: how does libertarianism create equality? For the pseudo-intellectual libertarian poster girl Ayn Rand and her followers, extreme inequality seems to be a deliberate goal.